


Collateral Damage

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 05:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8389852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: Things don't always go to plan. At least, not to ours.





	

**Author's Note:**

> None of the archive warnings apply, but you should go in being warned. 
> 
> No happiness here.

When they brought them in, I had to be scolded to shake me out of the shock. You get used to a certain amount of blood and damage, working in a sickbay during a war. I’d spent a lot of time on the Farragut repairing disruptor blasts and stab wounds. One case involved a nasty gash that the doc said was a bat’leth swung by a very tall, very strong man -- tore the poor guy from a shoulder through his abdominal cavity and all the way down a hip to his thigh, it was a miracle he’d lived as long as he had, with his stomach evulsed and filthy with crud, blood everywhere, stomach contents swimming around amongst the intestines. I hadn’t blinked, just reached for the saline and started cleaning while talking to the guy. 

This -- this was different.

“Mack, get the basin and some soapy water,” Dr. Gresham exclaimed, waving a hand. “We’re going to get some of this off before we even start.”

It was my job to slowly wash the accumulated crusty filth off the mostly-naked man in front of me, usually while talking to the patient to ascertain whether there were any psychiatric issues requiring intervention. Giving me the menial tasks let me get close to patients while doing the real work I was intended to do. A lot of officers are suspicious of psychiatric anything, even after all this time. 

Underneath the filth was pale skin, dry, some of it raw. He had ropy sinews and must have lost a lot of weight over the past weeks. While I worked on his face and head they started scanning, and the doctor reeled off a litany of woes over our unconscious patient -- he’d been starved, beaten, and also worked hard from the calluses on his fingers. Badly-healed broken bones everywhere. Scars down his back, parallel ropy things with angry red seams and a few still scabbed. 

“I ran his genetics. You’re not going to believe this,” Trina whispered, standing back from the monitor. “This is Jean-Luc Picard.”

All four of us stared down at the emaciated body on the biobed between us, and went silent. Until Gresham snapped, “Get the captain. Mack, keep washing. Trina, get the regenerator lined up -- Sarah, I want him dosed and unconscious for the duration, and start on getting him rehydrated and get some nutrients into him. Gresham to Dr. Loren -- get yourself to sickbay, we need another team to work on a patient.”

I looked at the other biobed where a humanoid in similar condition waited for our attention -- he wasn’t in as dire condition as the one we’d started with first. I wondered which of the two who’d vanished with Picard more than two years ago that would turn out to be. 

It was a famous mission -- I’d been on the space station, Deep Space Nine, waiting for my ship to come in, literally, and then it hit the news. All the Starfleet personnel on the station went mostly quiet, and the tension was palpable. The news traveled fast, through many channels -- three of the crew of the Enterprise had been captured while on a diplomatic mission gone awry. Captain Picard was missing. Attempts were made to get them back -- the first officer, Riker, had been tenacious almost to the point of insubordination, trying to find them. He’d discovered that the three missing people had been handed over to the Breen -- the species they had been reaching out to had been rumored to be Dominion allies, and that was confirmed later in the war. But Riker was ordered to assume command, move on to defend the Federation. Scuttlebutt had it that he’d nearly gone rogue and taken the Enterprise into the Gamma Quadrant after the missing crew. 

And now, with the war over and slow exploration into the Gamma Quadrant beginning, we found them. Two of them, anyway. There were scraps of the old style of Starfleet uniform showing through the grime, so instead of dropping them off with the rest of the people we’d found adrift in a disabled vessel, Captain McClaine had kept them in sickbay -- the G’kirril crew had argued briefly but given up in the face of McClaine’s refusal to surrender Starfleet officers back into slavery. Because the ship was a slave trading vessel -- with the crew living in quarters and bathing regular, and the dozen people they claimed were passengers hidden away in a dank hold they pretended was luxury accommodations and refused to “disturb them” that was the conclusion McClaine came to, finally. That and the scan confirming human life signs.

I was ordered to move on to the other officer as Gresham declared Picard to be in decent enough shape to withstand some surgery. He started the prep work while I worked on cleaning up what turned out to be a woman with dark hair. I had to shave off most of it, due to the matted gunk in what had probably been long and beautiful waves of hair, and then while I was brushing away the last layers of filth from her face, her eyes opened.

It had to be the counselor -- the black-on-black of Betazoid eyes is unmistakable. The wild vacant look in them was startling. I told her it would be all right, but she stared right through me, at something horrible from the fear in them. She tried to speak but nothing came out. 

I gave her a sedative, too. Her eyes closed. I had a lot to remove, to get down to her skin, and begin to make her look more like herself again.

\-------------------------

So I was assigned to be their main caregiver, as our vessel made its way back to Federation space, for the two of them. I saw to it that all their basic needs were met -- the computer and the biobed did most of the work, providing for nutrition and sanitation, but they were people and needed someone to be there. Most of the time those first weeks they were unconscious. Occasionally, while I double-checked the readouts, cleaned their faces, and spent a little time talking to them, telling them where they were and how they were doing, their eyes might open. Hers remained vacant and terrified. She didn’t appear to be there yet. He was a little more responsive; his eyes shifted left once, in my direction, but when I asked if he saw me he closed them again.

When he opened his eyes and for the first time seemed to connect with me, track my movement and react to my presence, it was about two and a half weeks after we’d picked them up. And then, he tensed and tried to sit up. Of course, he was so weak and underweight he could barely move, and I told him to stay still.

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” I said. “You and your companion are aboard the Grissom. We’re on our way to Deep Space Nine. You’ll be transferred to another Starfleet vessel and taken to Earth. Everything will be fine.”

A strange smile flitted along his lips, and he closed his eyes again.

He didn’t respond again, though I could tell when he was awake. He kept his eyes closed.

\----------------------

Four weeks after finding them, we reached the wormhole, and made the transition to the Alpha Quadrant. 

“We can’t just walk them through the space station,” I told Gresham and McClaine. “She hasn’t really been conscious, and he’s refusing to engage -- think about where they've been. I don’t know that he even believes me when I tell him where he is.”

That led to the captain paying Picard a visit. My patient was still emaciated, though not as bad off as he’d been. He still wasn’t eating on his own. He was awake when we came in -- I could see his eyes move under his eyelids -- but he didn’t move as we approached. Lying in state under the blanket, his bare shoulders still lightly scarred, his face showing deep hollows and dark patches under his eyes, he was nothing like the picture in his bio. 

“Captain,” McClaine said. “We’re about to transfer you to the Enterprise. They’ve come specifically to take you home.”

When Picard didn’t respond I gathered my resolve. “Sir,” I said quietly.

“Lieutenant?”

“I want to go with them,” I said, trying not to sound anxious. “I’ve been with them since we rescued them. I think maybe part of the problem is that they may have been subjected to torture, probably drugged frequently -- I know he’s been awake for some time, and yet he hasn’t responded to me speaking to him. I think if he is transferred without a constant it will cause decompensation.”

“You’re the psychiatric technician, Lieutenant Mackey. If the counselor concurs, we’ll put you on detached duty and send you along.”

After the captain left the room, I checked Picard’s vitals -- his heart rate had gone up a little. “I’m not going to leave you until you’re awake and reconnected with someone you care about. I know you probably don’t believe this is real.” It was a common reaction to being in concentration camps, I’d found, when dealing with rescued prisoners after the Dominion’s control had ceased and people started to be recovered.

Picard’s eyes opened a little. “Where,” he gasped airlessly.

“Where are you?” When he didn’t react, I tried again. “Where is Counselor Troi?”

Again, he shifted as if trying to sit up. I put a hand on his arm. He stared at me, his eyelids drooping.

“She’s been in the room next door all this time. She doesn’t respond to me at all, but her vitals are stable and she’s slowly recovering.”

A wince, and he kept his eyes closed.

“I’m not going to let them question you until you’re ready to answer. So you don’t need to worry that I’m going to force you into anything.”

A tiny movement of the ends of his lips was the only answer. That, and a so-very-subtle loss of tension in him. 

I thought about how they’d been found, together in a corner, and decided that I would change things up for them, once the transfer was complete.

\----------------

They were beamed straight across to the main sickbay of the Enterprise and I went with them, so I was standing by to witness the reunion of Picard and Troi with their former co-workers. The looks on the faces of the waiting officers were full of joy and hope, and as they observed the state of their friends, disappointment and woe -- Captain Riker came forward along with the doctor and gazed down at the face of Troi and then Picard. He looked to me then, and I introduced myself to them and explained that I would be with them until they were back to normal. 

“She’s non responsive,” I said as the doctor, a tall red headed woman, checked the readouts on each biobed. “He’s nearly so. Some eye movement now and then and I think he hears me some of the time. The trauma was obvious -- they’ve been abused pretty badly. You should put them together, in the same room.”

“Why do you say that?” A young woman came forward -- another Betazoid, I realized. Perhaps a replacement counselor. She’d been introduced as Lieutenant Linora.

“Call it an informed hunch. I’ve worked with recovered prisoners before. They fare better if kept together. It’s how they survived being in the labor camps, usually.”

The doctor, Crusher, gazed at me coolly. “They’ve had numerous surgeries,” she said. “He appears to be fine, for the most part -- has he spoken to anyone?”

“He’s awake, but not spoken yet. I wouldn’t pressure him on that. Let him continue to heal.”

Linora nodded, studying Picard’s face. “He’s right. The captain has probably been tortured and forced enough -- he doesn’t need any more coercion, even out of friendly concern.”

Riker regarded his former commanding officer sadly. “I hope he knows he’s among friends,” he said softly.

I thought Picard was reacting to it -- a little movement of his eyes, a certain tension to the set of the mouth -- but he didn’t say anything or open his eyes.

“Nurse Ogawa will arrange for a room,” Crusher said. “I’m going to give them both a thorough exam -- everyone out of my sickbay, please.”

I lingered, and stood by to let the doctor do her work. While her back was turned and she scrolled through the readouts on Troi’s bed, I caught Picard peering at me through his lashes. 

“I think you’ll find she’s stable and still in a coma,” I said. 

“Yes,” Crusher said absently. Something about the way she leaned over Troi told me she was completely involved in what she was seeing.

“So is the room ready for them?” I asked.

Crusher turned to look at me, doing a little double-take -- I glanced at Picard, back at her, frowned, shook my head. Realization dawned in her blue eyes. “Yes, Alyssa, what do we have ready right now?”

She continued to examine them while the nurse went to ready a room -- after we saw the two officers into their new accommodations with the help of several medical staff with antigrav stretchers, installed them on two biobeds that were within arm’s reach of each other, and returned to sickbay, I asked to see the doctor in private.

“I know you served with Picard for quite a long time,” I began as the door of her office closed behind me. She stopped short of her desk, turned, crossed her arms, waited for me to continue. So I did. “Who would you say his closest friend might be?”

She was startled by it. “That’s a tough call. I was married to his best friend, and since we’ve been serving together, I consider him a close friend. I suppose Will Riker might also be considered a close friend. And Deanna was his counselor, but she also considered him a close friend.”

“I know what you saw,” I informed her. “I don’t think he needs to know she was pregnant.”

Crusher’s chin dropped for a second. “You’re saying he’s awake?”

“More often than not, but he doesn’t trust this reality yet. I would guess it’s similar to what other recovered prisoners have told me -- while being tortured they were given mind-altering drugs. Hallucinating about home is a frequent occurrence. They learn not to trust their own perceptions. Until he’s come to believe he’s been rescued, it’s safer to leave him be. Talk to him, but don’t expect answers. I think all of you who call him friend should visit and talk to him. Tell him that you’re all right, and you’re glad he’s back, but not the details of things. Wait for him to find himself again.”

She was nodding before he finished. “That’s what we did after he’d been assimilated. Deanna advised us to do something similar.”

“She was a good counselor, I gather.”

Anger flared in her eyes, followed by anguish. “She still is.”

“She might be. She’s Betazoid. There have been only a couple of those who have returned alive. I wasn’t involved in their treatment, but I checked -- they’re still in what’s being called a comatose state, in a hospital on Betazed, but it’s not exactly that. Their families are arguing over whether they are brain dead and should be let go, or not.”

“She’s half human,” Crusher murmured, but I could tell my words had an impact.

“Yes. I’m not saying to lose hope. I’m saying it’s a slim chance. But it’s a chance, so we’ll make the effort -- I spend as much time with her as I do him, and now I’ll be able to sit with both of them, monitor their brain activity, tailor the medication to balance out the brain chemistry to give them the best chance, and wait.”

\-------------------

The day before we arrived at Earth, Picard opened his eyes and watched me giving Troi a hypo. Something I had done every day for both of them, and he had been awake for most of the last six weeks of it. 

“She’s looking better,” I said. “Her hair is growing. Her brain seems to be on the mend. Chemistry’s looking more like what’s in her records.”

A quiet huff. 

“Yours is too.” I turned in place -- I was standing between their beds, which was difficult; they were close and I wasn’t petite. He gazed up at me with a little more focus than I’d seen before.

I waited. He stared.

“I know you’ve been thinking this isn’t real. Do you feel clearer than you did before? Is it easier to think?”

“Yes,” he said, hoarse and flinching at the sound of his own voice.

“That’s going to continue. Would you like to sit up and have a look at her?”

His hands moved to the edges of the biobed. I put my hands at his shoulders and supported him with fingers wide, open, holding nothing and taking the weight of him in the palms. Not holding was important. It was the difference between the ‘help’ he’d had from his captors, and the help he would get from me.

He looked scrawny in his sickbay robe, and the dismay deepened the lines in his face as he came up to a sitting position and turned his head and saw her. She was still thin as a rail, and her hair was maybe an inch long. There was a hairline scar down her cheek and her expression, even while unconscious, was one of fear.

“Deanna,” he exclaimed. The fear for her trembled in his voice. 

I was lucky I had focused more on her. I wouldn’t have seen the twitch in her right cheek otherwise.

“I’m going to lay you back down and let you talk to her. It’ll be good for her to hear your voice.”

“Lieutenant,” he said uncertainly. 

I eased him down slowly. “Captain.”

“What’s your name?”

“Don’t laugh. My name is Mick Mackey.”

A rough bark of laughter at that. He grinned, and his eyes closed. “Can’t make that up. Must be….”

“Real?”

His eyes opened again. This time there was pain in them. He stared up at me for a few moments. “Deanna,” he whispered.

I took her limp hand and brought it across to his, took his hand, turned it palm up, placed her fingers on it. “Talk to her. You can help her come back from this.”

As I left the room, I heard him start. I hoped she would hear him, too.

\---------------------

It’s funny, I’d never gotten nearly so much cooperation with past patients. The first admiral that came aboard wanted to see Picard, and once he had, all I had to do was ask. So my ideal situation came true at last. They gave me a house instead of expecting me to work in hospital rooms, gave me a comfortable place for them to continue to recover. I had medical supplies, and a team of medical professionals to come by every few hours to check on them. Now that he was no longer trying to play nearly-dead, I could put Picard in a real bed and start physical therapy to help him get back to being self-sufficient. Men like him don’t appreciate being so needy that someone has to help them take a piss.

His friends, his former crew, continued to visit while their vessel remained in orbit. They were happy to see him talking. Not so happy that Troi still looked comatose, but I could tell them I felt her chances were improving, though I didn’t get specific about why. A twitch here and there when her former commanding officer spoke wasn’t really much to go on, but I viewed it as significant enough, since it was consistent. It didn’t happen when I chatted about what I was doing with her limbs, as I moved them around, trying to help her joints and muscles avoid atrophy. 

“Your friends will be able to contact you -- I had a terminal put in the sun room,” I said as I escorted Picard slowly into the dining nook one morning. The window there overlooked the tiny back yard. Once he sat at the small round table, I went about replicating myself a sandwich and a drink. “What would you like?”

Long silence. It was the first time I’d asked him -- I hadn’t done so the previous day, knowing that it would be a challenge for him. 

“How about turkey and ham on rye?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Coming right up.”

His coordination wasn’t at its best, but he was able to grip the sandwich in both hands at least. I let him eat without interference, even though he dropped some of the meat and spilled his tea. 

“Are you a counselor?” He spoke slowly, and sounded as though he might have spent a few months shouting and screaming -- the scans showed some scarring that indicated physical assault. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it in one of my patients. It usually meant something had been forced down his throat.

“No. I am a psychiatric technician. I can administer medication, and I have cross-training in physical therapy and some techniques that can get you back from some abuse and torture physically. The counselors don’t show up until I say so. You don’t have to worry about those yet.”

A weary nod, and he took another bite, chewing slowly. The rest of the meal was silent. I was used to that. 

I walked him back to the bedroom and saw him settled into the bed, steadying him as necessary, and went to see how Troi was doing -- the biobed she still needed had been placed in with his bed at my request. I kept the bedroom door open, and across the hall, mine would also remain open, so I could hear alarms. Or nightmares.

He fell asleep quickly. She was the same. I returned to clean the table, sat down in the living room with a book, and retired at my usual time after looking in on them. My alarm went off four hours later, and when I leaned in the door, I saw in the half-intensity light I’d set, he was sitting up and gazing at her.

“Need anything?” I asked softly.

He turned slowly -- he did everything at a sloth-like pace, as if his entire body hurt, which was probable -- and asked, “Will she ever wake up?”

“I don’t know. It seems to take Betazoids longer.” I came to the end of the bed, so he didn’t have to turn so far to see me. “Are you very close, the two of you?”

“She saved my life,” he said, his voice rising nearly an octave and cracking. “She -- “

He didn’t reach for the tissues on the night stand, so I had to get them for him. He cried for a bit, and seemed to lose the ability to sit upright, so I got him back in bed and arranged the covers. 

I returned to my own bed and went to sleep, aware that in four hours it might repeat. And then many times after that. It was the way some of them went.

\------------------

There was a routine we all fell into -- we would have meals at a set time, and a walk midafternoon. Physical therapy would be midmorning. He would get a call and I would announce it, and he’d talk to the person or not based on whether it was someone he knew personally. Naps were frequent, usually between activities. He was working his way up to a long walk, and spending time sitting with Deanna. 

Conversation was kept to the day to day small things. I knew we were still operating on the assumption that this was all real, that sometimes he questioned whether it was, and I didn’t think pushing was a good idea. The best thing for him, of course, would be seeing Deanna wake up. I knew that being a survivor and being a commanding officer was the perfect storm -- setting him up for a triple-helping of guilt if she didn’t recover. He didn’t mention the other officer. I’d learned from my time aboard the Enterprise that the missing man was the android, Data, and suspected that he’d been dismantled long ago by the Weyoun or some other puppet of the Founders.

She finally moved, while we were both in the room. I administered the daily hypo, and double-checked that she was being fed by the biobed. Picard said her name, as usual trying to call her back from the abyss, and her head turned slightly in his direction. I noticed a flutter of eyelashes and put a hand to her forehead, hoping to coax her back to the land of the living.

“Deanna,” Picard repeated. “Look at me. We’re on Earth. Come on.”

But she wasn’t there yet. She didn’t open her eyes. I gently pried an eyelid back to see if there was a response, and shook my head. “Let’s get out and walk.”

“Deanna,” Picard said in a despairing tone. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at her. She was looking better; her hair was now about two inches long. Some of the old wounds had healed.

“Maybe she’ll talk to us later.”

\-----------------------

I came home after a meeting at Starfleet Medical to find him once again on the edge of his bed, two weeks later, sitting and talking to her. He obviously hadn’t heard me come in the house. I stood outside in the hall for a bit.

“I heard from Will today,” Picard said. “He wanted to talk to you. He’s feeling guilty, still. You said you thought he wanted….” After a pause, he sighed heavily. “I feel so useless. I often do. And I know what you would tell me, because you did, after the Borg -- that feelings pass. But I’m not sure that it isn’t true this time. I don’t think they’ll let me go back into service, Deanna.”

I moved quietly back to the living room, and started to rearrange the furniture to get ready for the physical therapy session we were supposed to have. When I called him he came slowly, moving carefully -- he’d fallen trying to move too quickly just a couple of days before.

“Sorry I’m a bit behind schedule,” I said as I eased him down to the mat I’d laid out. “I ran into a former patient. He went to a facility six months ago, after we were done with our time together, and then I guess he got done there and now he’s switched gears -- swore off starships and wars, now he’s working security here at Starfleet Command.”

He offered no comment. While we worked through the series of stretches he usually didn’t talk. He took his nap after, just like always, and then it was lunch time, so I went in to check on Deanna before replicating food and found him standing next to her biobed staring at her face. 

“She’s awake,” he said quietly. 

“Great,” I said. Her eyes were open, all right, and as I approached the far side of her bed, they tracked my movement. “Hi, Deanna. I’m Mick. You can call me Mack if you prefer. Your friend here probably told you we’re on Earth?”

Her lips moved. I thought she might be asking, as usually happened, where or who or what, or when. 

“How would you like to join us for lunch?” Picard asked. 

I almost vetoed the idea, but her head turned, and before I could react Picard was helping her sit up -- and then he was holding her against his chest. 

“I’ll go start things -- I’ll be back in a minute to get her. Don’t do anything everyone will regret,” I warned him. The last thing we needed was for him to pretend he was able to carry her, or support her weight, and both of them fall and break things.

Fortunately, he did as he was told. She was sitting up on the biobed and he was draping one of his robes over her shoulders. The dark circles under her eyes and the scar down her right cheek were still there, but there was no denying that smile made her look alive. 

I finished the process of extricating her from the biobed, and carried her out to put her in a chair at the dining room table facing the window. It was obvious that now that she was awake, I didn’t exist -- he focused on her and fed her a little soup, and I had to remind him to eat as well. 

It would be a turning point for him, I thought. Hopefully, she would not fall back into whatever state she had been in. 

She remained awake for the rest of the day, which disrupted our schedule; he refused to leave the house for a walk, and so I set them up in the yard. They weren’t talking much. I expected that she would continue to be disoriented and need time to regain equilibrium and he seemed to understand that well enough. He held her hand, which more likely had to do with keeping her grounded than anything else. Judging from his records he was no stranger to trauma and interventions to handle symptoms such as disassociation. 

While they were watching the birds in the elm tree, I went inside and contacted my supervisor, Dr. Kelham, to let him know Troi had awakened and we would want a doctor to check her over. He was shocked for a few minutes -- I understood why, well enough. 

“I’ll send Dr. Sovol in half an hour,” he said. “We’ll want to be sure she's stable before we transfer them.”

“I don’t think they should be moved just yet. She could relapse. He could, for that matter. He doesn’t talk to me, but I get a sense he’s not very hopeful he’ll recover. Let them have some time together here.”

But the bureaucratic mind is stupid. It took twenty-four hours for the four doctors supervising the two patients to come to the conclusion that they belonged in a facility in San Jose. 

Twenty four hours after that, I was on a transport on my way back to Deep Space Nine. I’d been reassigned, to another ship bound for the Gamma Quadrant. Such is the life of a psychiatric technician specializing in former detainees. 

\-------------------------  
\-------------------------

“I have group in twenty minutes,” Mara said, glancing at the clock on the wall of the break room. “I hate Wednesdays.”

“I thought you could reassign problem clients,” I commented, picking up my glass. Mara always complained about the same client.

“This was his third reassignment. I’m the last chance. And it’s not like he’s hitting people or anything obnoxious.”

“Starfleet officers are the worst,” Gloria exclaimed. 

My father was an officer, so I hated when they said things like that. It was true that they could be stubborn, sometimes even belligerent, but the things they went through -- most of the staff here at Laurel Glen had no idea. I drank my coffee and held my tongue. It was pointless to try explaining. I’d learned that a long time ago.

Mara glared at me. Something must have showed in my face. “Ted, why don’t you help me out today, if you think it’s so easy? I happen to know you have your schedule open -- you can’t have that much administrative junk to do this afternoon.”

“Fine,” I exclaimed. 

The group was intended to be art therapy -- Mara usually had six people in it, but one of her clients had graduated and another was down with a cold, so there were four, including her nemesis, a bald, older man. Captain Picard, I realized. I’d known he was at our facility somewhere. He was wearing a sweater and slacks, but something about his bearing set him apart from the other three, two young women and a nervous Bolian who fidgeted constantly. Mara gave instructions as they came into the studio, brightly lit by sun pouring through the long transparent aluminum windows and sunroof. The three followed instructions, gathering paint and brushes and a canvas, choosing one of the six easels around the room, but Picard merely wandered to the window and stared outside. 

Mara grimaced and gave me a look as if saying “see what I mean” -- I grinned at her and went over to see what the former captain was looking at.

There were always patients sitting around on the lawn on the west side of the building. He seemed to be focused on a dark-haired woman all by herself in a lounge chair. 

“Good afternoon,” I said. “How are you today, sir?”

It pulled his attention to me. “Fine.”

“I guess painting your feelings isn’t high on your list of great things to do on a Wednesday,” I said. “Not like it’s really anyone’s cup of tea, but it makes the art therapist feel good.”

“It doesn’t seem to be optional,” he said with a whiff of frustration. 

“You’re driving Mara up the wall, y’know.”

He stared out the window again. “I have the feeling she will recover from the rejection.”

“I’m surprised you’re here, sir.” When he raised an eyebrow, I went on. “The meetings -- the psychiatrist suspects you’re better than you let on. It’s not something he says, but I’ve worked here for plenty of years and I know how it goes. He’s trying to figure out what should be next for you.”

“He hasn’t asked me.” Definitely an undercurrent of annoyance, there. 

“Is that someone you know?” The woman had left the chair to walk across the grass toward a fountain. She stopped in front of it, then I saw her head turn -- she looked straight up at us, at the third floor window, and stared. Picard put his hand on the pane and leaned forward a little. The woman smiled.

“I haven’t spoken to her in months. Since we got here. They don’t tell me why I can’t. I’ve asked.”

“Well… I can’t just take you down there,” I said, thinking out loud. “But, I can do some checking. You go paint some random thing, join the group, so Mara doesn’t need me here, and I’ll go down to a terminal and see what I can do.”

He went to get paint, and chose an easel, just like that. I gave Mara a triumphant look, and then followed through -- the records indicated that he had arrived with a female officer, and then she had gone through a period of violent behavior, when they were first brought in. There had been an incident where she had gone after an orderly who had tried to force him to leave her to go for some sort of testing -- I could read between the lines well enough, unlike so many of the dumbasses they employed here. They had been prisoners of war. The woman had been his officer, on his senior staff, and they were found together and rescued together. 

One of the biggest problems with the utopia we have become, here on Earth. Too many of us had become ignorant of the consequences of chronic abuse. 

I went to find Dr. Nord, and had to wait for a while, but managed to get in the door of his office. “I have a question,” I said, sitting down in the opulent office full of wood furniture and faux-wood paneling. 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Michaels, yes, do sit down,” he said sarcastically, tossing a padd he held on his desk. “What can I do for you, Ted?”

“It sounds like no one is bothering to acknowledge that one of Picard’s officers is here as a patient as well, and both of them are close to done with treatment, and yet, no one is putting it all together? It isn’t as though this ban you put on them four months ago even applies any more. And if you thought for a few minutes, even back then, about where they had come from and why she might have this sort of automatic defensive instinct -- ”

“Hang on,” Nord exclaimed, then asked the computer for their records. 

“My dad was tortured by Romulans. He told me all about how he was treated, when he was being ‘helped’ by people who’d never had a hangnail.” It was a reminder, really. Nord already knew about my own history. It was one of the reasons he was listening to me, actually.

Nord’s dark eyes flicked back to my face. “So what do you propose?”

“I’d like to take him down to see her after art group. If he does okay, and she’s okay, they should be allowed to see each other. The ban is stupid if the treatment they’re getting has resulted in improvement. And if they are discharged within the week, you owe me a week’s vacation.”

I went to Risa. It was _fantastic._

\---------------------------  
\---------------------------

 

It took some time to find Captain Picard again. I was in the Gamma Quadrant for three years, two months, one week, three days and -- 

I was in the Gamma Quadrant for three years. Geordi tells me that is adequate to convey the point, and I do not have to be precise. 

When I arrived at Deep Space Nine, I found myself largely ignored. Dr. Bashir, with whom I had been acquainted previously, was no longer aboard the station. And so I took a transport -- apparently my account still existed and I was able to pay for passage without issue. I knew that I could request assistance from Starfleet, but there were reasons that I did not find myself inclined to do so at this time. 

I did contact Geordi, only to find that he had accepted an assignment in the San Francisco shipyards. So I went all the way back to Earth, where he assured me that I would also find Captain Picard. 

When I reached the main transporter pad at the San Francisco terminal, he was there to greet me. He had exchanged his visor for implants, and he had gained weight -- the new version of the uniform also made him look different. It was… disconcerting to me. 

It is illogical to expect that everyone had stayed the same, in my absence. And yet I expect them to match the image in my memory.

We went together to find Captain Picard. He sent a message, but it did not elicit a response. “But I know he’d want to see you, Data,” Geordi exclaimed, shaking his head. “Sometimes it takes a while for them to respond. We’ll wait for a bit.”

He told me where the rest of our former crewmates were -- Beverly had retired from Starfleet, and now resided on Caldos, to be the doctor in her home village. Will had accepted a promotion and now was in command of the latest iteration of the Enterprise, and exploring the Gamma Quadrant. He had married and now had a son. I did not know the woman he married personally, but she appears attractive, in the picture in her Starfleet bio. Worf was on the Klingon Home World, now the Federation representative to the Empire. 

Apparently, the captain and the counselor had gone through treatment for their trauma and been released -- neither one of them had remained in Starfleet. 

“Are they together?” I asked. We were in his apartment, and it came up again as he checked for messages and again found nothing from the captain.

“Well, they live together,” Geordi said. “But they aren’t married. I’m pretty sure we’d know about that if it happened.”

“It has been two days -- do they take this long to respond, normally?”

Geordi shrugged. “Not usually.”

“I hope there is nothing wrong.”

That made him frown. “Yeah… maybe we should find them. I don’t know where they are -- the few times we’ve met, it’s been restaurants in San Francisco. I’d think he would get right back to us, if he knew you were back.”

They were difficult to find. Geordi guessed that was intentional. He had gotten messages, he said, as had Will and Beverly -- they had revealed very little of their experience in the Gamma Quadrant, and neither one of them had jobs.

We had to walk to the small house, on a large parcel of land in New Zealand. The public transporter in Auckland would not send us to approximate coordinates. A taxi dropped us at the end of the small rutted trail winding through the grassy fields to a grove of trees around the white house.

As we approached I saw that the house was surrounded by a short fence. “I am not certain we should approach any closer,” I said to Geordi.

“Deanna,” he called out, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Hey! Anyone home?”

The front door opened. The captain came out -- he froze on the top step, then rushed forward to the front gate. “Data?”

“I am happy to see you, sir,” I said. 

The captain grinned -- it was disconcerting, to see him looking so thin. He had a beard, mostly gray and somewhat unkempt, and wore loose trousers and a long-sleeved shirt that hung on him. He opened the gate and came out at an uneven walk, and as he reached me he put his arms around me. I reciprocated as best I could, glancing at Geordi, surprised by this behavior. He watched with a confused expression.

“We thought you were dead,” he said, pulling away, and now it was obvious that he had tears in his eyes. “Geordi, hello.”

“We tried to call. I waited two days. Sorry about just showing up like this.”

“Not at all -- I disconnected the computer, there was something the matter with it.”

“Let me take a look at it,” Geordi exclaimed. “It’s not safe for you out here without it.”

“Come inside, come come,” he said, leading the way with an uneven, broken gait that I found disturbing. “Dee! Guess who’s here!”

The house was sparsely furnished. I sat in one of five chairs in the main room while the captain went to get tea, and Deanna came down some creaking stairs -- she came to me crying, and threw her arms around me. Geordi was upset by her appearance but smiled when she hugged him -- he went to fix the computer without further comment.

“Forgive me, but I am concerned -- you do not look well, Deanna,” I said as she sat in a rocking chair next to me.

She put a hand to her hair, which was dry and sparse, what little there was clipped back from her face. A long faded scar down her face bisected her right cheek. “I have bad days sometimes. The older wounds couldn’t be healed by regenerators. It’s going to rain soon -- my knees hurt.”

“Data, how did you get out?” The captain returned and placed the tea tray on a low table, and sat on a tattered sofa. “We kept looking out for you….”

“You ordered me to return to the Federation at any cost, to save myself and to inform Starfleet of your imprisonment. I attempted to do so. I was able to escape the camp, but when I attempted to orchestrate the freeing of the rest of the prisoners, an alarm was sounded and there was nothing else to do -- Jem’Hadar had begun to gather, and so I fought my way clear and hid. I deactivated for a set period of three weeks to avoid detection, by hiding in a waste facility in scrap metal bearing trace radiation that would mask the minimal output of my circuitry while main functionality was offline. I disguised myself and worked among traders of scrap for a period of three months, then found myself adrift in a disabled vessel after we were boarded by a Klingon raiding party and the rest of my crew captured or killed. The Klingons had no use for me, thinking me just a robot. I was picked up and became part of a band of mercenaries for a while. I made my way to the wormhole finally and upon returning to Deep Space Nine and discovering the current state of affairs, I felt that contacting Starfleet was contraindicated at this time. I am sorry that I disobeyed your orders, sir.”

Geordi returned and sat in a dusty easy chair. “There’s a missing part -- you said it was malfunctioning. What was it doing?”

“I got this message, from the head of the internment camp,” the captain said. “I’m afraid I was a little angry.”

“He hit it with one of the metal stakes we use to fix the fence,” Deanna said. “I think it was a flashback at the sound of his voice.”

“Well, I can go to Auckland for another part,” Geordi said. “And then we can program it to automatically delete messages from people you don’t want finding you, or bothering you.”

“I regret not returning in time to prevent the Dominion from winning the war,” I said. “I had hoped to bring the information that I retrieved while in the Gamma Quadrant -- “

“I doubt that it would have made a difference,” Geordi said wearily. “Data, you don’t understand -- no one can access any of what actually happened, any more. They’ve rewritten history. I can tell you know that the glorious Founders won the war, and took over the Federation with ease. But I was on the Enterprise and I remember -- the news was full of all the defeats, when Vulcan fell, when Betazed fell, when the core worlds of the Federation were overwhelmed -- it all happened over those months after you disappeared. We couldn’t even fight any more. And now the Federation goes on as it did before -- we’re just part of the larger galactic picture now. Except we jump when the Founders say jump, and so Will is off winning some battle in their name.”

“I do not wish to become part of their regime,” I said. I turned to Captain Picard, expecting him to declare war -- to have a plan. I believe that is what I expected. Because I was disappointed to find him a tired old man, huddling inside a coat that was too big for him.

“You may wish to find a way to build a new identity,” Deanna said. “Or you may find refuge in the Romulan Empire -- they are still holding out against the Dominion, despite everything.”

I looked at my friends -- all older, all tired, and while I remain an android, I feel that I began to understand despair. 

“Would it be possible to remain here with you, sir?”

“You’ll always be welcome, old friend,” the captain said with a smile. 

\------------------------

It has been six months since I returned to Earth. 

I am putting in a garden. It is a challenge, as I have never cared for plants before, but there are plenty of books to help me learn. 

I have learned to do nothing when one of my friends experiences a nightmare. They sleep together, and they hold one another while they are crying. Deanna was careful to take me aside out of the captain’s hearing, to explain that while they were put through treatment upon their return, neither of them were completely forthcoming with the doctors out of fear that saying too much about the atrocities they experienced at the hands of the Vorta, the Jem’hadar and the Breen would lead to their execution. The propaganda machine of the Dominion was in full swing when they returned. Will Riker had warned the captain while returning them to Earth. The captain had done whatever was necessary to exit treatment and take Deanna with him.

She also clarified that they are friends, and nothing more. They have been offered a home by Beverly, but neither of them wishes to go. Deanna has not explained this other than to say that some things are true, despite being illogical, and that emotional pain can be worse than the physical. 

Neither of them has recovered from the torture. 

I have also been learning basic medical procedures. Geordi has procured a medical tricorder, and I am now stocking a variety of medications to help my friends with their ongoing aches and pains. I have learned not to speak of the many things that I have discovered about them during this process. I do not remark upon the internal scarring or the missing genitalia, or the continued hoarseness that plagues them both due to esophageal trauma. I do not suggest that I attempt to heal any of the deep scarring on their backs. 

At the end of the day, after they eat dinner, they retire early and listen to old music, old plays, readings of favorite books -- the captain’s eyesight has not been good, both his eyes were damaged by repeated blows to the face in the internment camp, and regeneration helped but did not completely address the matter.

I do not sleep, so I sit in the living room at night. I often think about the way it was before the Dominion -- I think about the ideals my captain had, and the successful missions. I have said before that I wished this or that -- it was a concession to the language, to the culture I was in, as I do not have emotions and cannot wish, per se. But now, I am as close as I have ever been, to wishing.

I wish that the situation with the Dominion could have been so easily resolved as our many missions. 

I wish that intelligent species could find a way to co-exist, without constantly struggling against domination, subjugation, or manipulation.

I wish that I understood how to do away with the nightmares. I fear that I will remember their screams for the remainder of my life -- however long that will be. 

Around midnight, the captain came downstairs, slowly. He sat down with me. "Data, I have a request."

"I will not leave you again."

He paused. "I appreciate that. I think, however, that I would like you to begin to plan. To work on a way to throw off Dominion tyranny, and to restore freedom, not just to the Federation but the Gamma Quadrant as well. And I think you are in a unique position to carry it off, with your potential long lifespan and ability to learn -- what do you think?"

"I shall have to give the matter consideration. I believe that may be the only course of action left to me other than suicide. Because I do not wish to continue in the current circumstance -- I do not want to be part of a Starfleet that is doing the bidding of the Founders. I am experiencing difficulty understanding how Will Riker could be doing so."

"Data... there is sometimes very little to do, other than to survive, when circumstances are this dire."

"You are not returning to attempt to change this," I said.

He sagged in the chair, and looked ancient, in the shadows, with his tired eyes and haggard face. "I am beyond all that... I intend to take care of Deanna. She shielded me in the camps, from the worst of it. She took punishment that would have been dealt to me. She -- " He looked away, listened for a moment in the silence. "She kept me sane. She kept talking to me, telepathically, throughout everything. I have nothing left but this. I'm too tired, too damaged. You will find other recruits. I know we aren't the only ones who know. Geordi knows. Data, please tell me you'll try."

"I shall attempt it, Captain."

It took a moment for me to recognize the wrenching noise as laughter. "Thank you, Mr. Data. I needed the hope."

I watched him slowly stumble up the stairs, and turned my thoughts to the task at hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct result of working with former soldiers and hearing their stories. 
> 
> War is just not a good thing, regardless of outcomes. It's hardly a necessary thing either. It's just war. There could have been a different path. If only life were like Star Trek, and the captain pulls out the solution in the last five minutes.
> 
> And, yes, it's also the election -- the only question we should be asking is who would make a better president. That the real answer is neither tells me that the process, the system, is corrupted -- we no longer get choices. We get the puppets that are put forth and we all pretend it was our choice. And I hope smarter people than me can figure out how to change that without bloodshed.


End file.
